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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27064528">Swamp blues</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravenWyvern/pseuds/CravenWyvern'>CravenWyvern</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>DS Extras [85]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Don't Starve (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Amnesia, Blood and Gore, Curses, Mental Disintegration, Merm Shenanigans, Mermification, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Semi Graphic Descriptions of Things Being Eaten, headcanons galore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:48:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,032</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27064528</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravenWyvern/pseuds/CravenWyvern</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mermification doesn't come with many benefits.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>DS Extras [85]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/688443</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Swamp blues</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Started this last year, finished it up recently.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The curse <i>ached.</i></p><p>It itched, it was sore, it rumbled light feather touches of wrongness, and it <i>hurt. </i></p><p>Not to mention, the ever present hunger.</p><p>***</p><p>
  <i>"There's nothing we can do."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Why do you say that!? We can't just give up, there is a way out of it, so there has to be a way to cure it!"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"While Mumsy certainly showed us what to do, there have been no indications of restoring what has been lost."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Unfortunately, I agree. Give up, pal; we may just have to accept a few losses for success."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"I...I can't do that! I can't just say, welp, we messed up, the giant sky teeth thought our cooking was lackluster and now one of our friends is a fish! I can't give up, none of us should."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Mr. Higgsbury, I do believe we should focus first and foremost on our survival; the others will mourn as well, but if we do not continue on we may lose another of our number."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"But we can't just leave him in that state!"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Pal, I'm sure a bit of time will not harm Woodie any. I, for one, do not want to end up in such a state, and I should be right in guessing you do not either. Time is ticking, and a few of us have already gotten scales."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Now that you mention it, Mr. Carter, I do have a few unnatural growths on my upper arms. Mumsy is in a similar state, even having fed the sky wyrm for years. We do not have the time to lollygag."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"...fine. But once we appease this thing and open the gate, I will not leave anyone behind, you all understand?"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Of course, pal, of course."</i>
</p><p>***</p><p>The swamps were noisy places. He didn't especially like them, really.</p><p>But the mud was soft, slick and slimy and coating his scales, oozed between the webbing and spines of himself, and it eased the crippling rough itchiness, irritation that inflamed every inch of his skin. Relaxed down into the murk, streaked oily mud and substrate, flashing outer layer eyelids to keep too sensitive eyes clean, it was enough to rumble a low purr of contentment. </p><p>Hunger bit, gnawed at him, but the mud was a soft, cozy presence, warmed his joints and covered him in almost every inch, only the top of his head, his eyes, unprotected. The fins of his ears poked out, twitched as he idly listened to the world above, the sounds of bugs and slithering tendrils and the clickering of spiders, low ambience of the swampy biome. It wasn't full sunset yet, evening only just coming around; the others would be emerging soon.</p><p>They had actual houses, tilted and crooked and falling to pieces as they were, though he's never been in one as of yet. Merms were not too friendly to those they knew nothing off, and they all eyed him with distrust, splashing about their days in much the same that he did; keeping the emptiness almost sated, easing the aches and pains, protecting each other from the dangers of neighbors. Though, he didn't have that last one as an ingrained habit, and hopefully never would.</p><p>He at least was smart enough, observant enough to avoid the tentacles. One swing would take him out for a very, very long while, and he'd starve if he wasn't careful.</p><p>For now, mud bubbling between the concaves of his teeth, elongated jaw and gills rumbling low as he breathed easy, eyes half lidded as the sun warmed mud eased his aching pains, for now he let himself relax.</p><p>Perhaps it had been a good idea, to come here after all. His memory was shot full of holes and blankness, but he had traveled here through salty painful seas and he remembered that at least.</p><p>But now was not time for remembering. The squish of weighty feet caught his attention, fins twitching as he opened his eyes, more alert, and watched as a few lumbering merms emerged from their rickety home.</p><p>One coughed at him, jaw wide and fins spread, bulging blank eyes pinned to his relaxed form, but there were gurgles from the others and after a few moments it turned its gaze away hautily.</p><p>The mud dip here was shallow, then concaved into more of swamp murk pond, a mire lake, and as the merms slowly shuffled his way, claws scrawling across their scaly hide skin and the peeling of the dry curse, he finally started to inch back. </p><p>The mud squelched between his claws, was an easing sensation as he slithered through it, but then there was the shallowest of slopes and instead of thick mud it was muk water now, the substrate stringy vegetation, the hidden faint movements of tentacles and fish. Mosquitoes were already emerging from their day sleep, buzzing about the surface looking for the next meal, and he sunk himself down, barely felt the bottom with his toe claws and feeling it slope ever downward. Sometimes these mires got deep, the muggy fog underneath just barely giving hint to tendril stalks and the deep of filled caves, swamp thickness invading the underground, shallow and then deep cold lakes, waterfalls to the mire underneath.</p><p>He did not venture to those places. The dark may not hurt him any longer, but his mind would leave him long gone if he wandered too deep, too far from the sun.</p><p>For now, as he sunk a bit, swam slowly away as the awakened merms submerged themselves into the mud he had been previously basking in, low gurgling contentment, up went his own low hiss, muffled bubbles that clung to his scaled neck and jaws, fanged teeth jutting above the waters surface, eyeing them coldly.</p><p>Still, the water was not unkind. It washed mud from his inner scales, cleaned his fins and membranous spines, left him weightless. And, with the slow awakening ache in his gut, here there lived fish and eel that the others did not touch.</p><p>Flickering layers of eyelids, sweeping over his own bulging fish eyes and with gills pulsing and flushing in the murk water around him, he finally slunk away, disappearing from the surface and its falling sun evening. Water flowed around him, semi stagnant but with hidden faded currents, and with that the mud rock bottom dipped and fell and he sunk down deeper, into the mire lake, searching for his next meal as bubbles trailed slow behind him.</p><p>As his gills aired, adjusted, his presence disappeared above and only the smudged outline of himself, in this purple green water quality, gave any resistance. His fins, webbing between his fingers and smooth scaling, soft and shallow as it was, were well adapted to swamp living.</p><p>Deep under, the tentacles massive trunks dug far eternal, another world of its own; the buzzing swamp ambience was gone, muffled silent underwater.</p><p>Only the tendrils low echos, the calls of creatures far too eldritch to set eyes upon, wyrms and the sirens; the merm swam easy, undisturbed, and all around others joined, in the eternal desire to ease the aching of hunger.</p><p>Their curse followed them well past the Quagmire, but it was here that they may find a life worth living.</p><p>His memories may not be as gone as theirs, but as he brushed by one particularly deep, thick tentacle trunk, the slick rounds of its texture lighted over by his webbed claws, before he darted away, distracted by a low hanging cloud of fish, slowly but surely he would join them in mentality.</p><p>The curse carried ever on.</p><p>***</p><p>
  <i>"It's rotten already."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Rotten? I had just gathered them up!"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Well, I can't cook with bad potatoes. You think that thing in the sky wants mold in its dish?"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"I think you shouldn't think too hard about that, pal."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"You've already seen what happens if we fail, Maxwell. I don't want to end up like Woodie or Willow; do you?"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"...I find the idea rather unappealing."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Then go find me something that isn't rotten, for whatever powers that be sakes. I woke up this morning with scales on my palms and I don't need it to spread."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"..."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"And I know you aren't fairing any better, so just do as I ask and stop dillydaddling. We don't have much time, and I don't want to fail anymore than we already have."</i>
</p><p>***</p><p>He had never been a fan of slimy fish. Raw eel was a delicate taste, and they swam in the cold waters flowing to the caves. He thus did not catch them often.</p><p>Still, mud oozed over his scales, chill from the night and early morning, and the aching soreness in his limbs was ever present as he tilted back his head, jaws gaping as he started the task of swallowing what he had gotten his webbed claws on. The food still wiggled, slimy and thick and slapping, but hunger gnawed in his belly, rose to carve its way through his chest, and the slick mess of fishy flesh was a hard lump to fall in his gut, giving him the faint contentment of almost fullness. It eased the ever present pains, eased the vibrating buzz of nipping hunger, starvation, and he'd suffer through a twitchy meal over the crippling effects of a rageful curse.</p><p>All about him the others were turning in for the day, squishy slaps of fins and claws in sunken mud, bulging fish eyes marked with dulled over hunger and the bloodshot of exhaustion. A few barred more scars now, a few limps, and he finally put away the twitching tail past his jagged maw, throat convulsing in the swallow to watch them trudge on by. </p><p>Carcasses were already attracting flies, a few awakened mosquitoes, and massive purple tendrils were ripped to shreds, the bulky fallen form of merm fighters, the crumbled remains of cracked open spiders.</p><p>He had stayed well away from the fighting, sunken in the mud as the screeching carried through the night, and now the carnage surrounded him in all its bloodied glory.</p><p>Even with a half alive eel in his belly, the smell passing his jaws, easing through his gills was particularly enticing. </p><p>Vague half memories surfaced as he wandered close to a gorey site, of bristly purple spider flesh bubbling over a fire, the fishy muscle of merm boiled in stone crockpots, the slime and spiraled organ meat of tentacles considered before fairly discarded. These visions haunted him, buzzing like flies in his consciousness, and he shook his head in a few quick wobbling jerks as to shake them off, fin ears twitching and laying back at his internal discomfort. Layered eyelids slid over his own bulging fish eyes, swiping away excess mud, and crouching down to the stiff chaos, palms pressed to squishy marsh mud, no vibrating tells of hidden dangers underneath caught his attention. </p><p>Footprints led back to a crooked shack, shingles sliding off and mucky weeds growing thick at the base, and he eyed it with the tilt of his head, still and watchful before dismissing it.</p><p>Either the occupants were the dead out here, or have went to slumber their painful hungers away.</p><p>While he feasted on fish and the leftover corpses, soothing the siren wailing of cramps in him, the aches of his joints and itchy hungry scales, he's found that not many others acted the same practice. Seeds were snatched up, bulky slimy claws dug furrows in the scattered almost farms that had sunken into the mire, exposing stunted root vegetables, and even the ponds on the edges, surrounded by deeper, foreboding forest and thick bushes bearing shiny red berries were scavenged from, and the fishy folk of this place spent their time digging for foods of the less meaty kind.</p><p>All the while he chewed and swallowed all that he could get his hands on, belly heavy and cramping yet mentally soothed over by mock fullness, enough to ease the tenseness from his chest. He didn't quite remember anymore, but once upon a time he near ate anything he could find, for the hope of future survival.</p><p>And, now, the beastly purple flesh did not pain him in the long lost ways. Now, he could dig his claws into spider exoskeleton and tug out long strings of chewy greasy meat, catching on his tooth infested jaw, sticking his long tongue down to scrape any leftover strands in the hollows of the arachnids shell.</p><p>Licking that clean, purple juices staining his jagged fangs and trailing a path down his throat scales, webbed, clawed hands pushing and pulling the bristly body before discarding in favor of something meatier, he eased over through mud and gore and stringy vegetation to a fallen fishy corpse.</p><p>This one had been lacerated by tentacle spines, a throat slit finally ending its life, and he shoved at it to find a vantage wound to start digging at, a roil of bubbling froth in his gut that ached and cramped and burned with hunger and already indigestion.</p><p>The curse did not translate well to his body; near mindless he had become, but even he simplified his eating habits as out of touch. Seeds did not sustain him, and neither could berries or neglected vegetables grown in swampy muck, but fish flesh and red meat didn't agree with his gut as well as it used to. It may leaden him down, an iron weight in his belly, but the weak were meat and the strong do eat.</p><p>And eat he did, gorging himself on fish folk flesh, cannibalizing as he found a gaping hole in the side made by spider fangs and voraciously dug his own teeth in, chewing experimentally and tearing as to swallow chunks whole. The blood here was ichor, thick and pale, red meat yet fishy, reminiscent of furry horned mammals, and he flicked his layered eyelids to clean the blood off him as he reminisced, hissing low and content all the while.</p><p>Faint veined memories, nothing with weight and only outer senses, thick smelly fur between gloved fingers and huge conch horns billowing out wailing music, and then softer, rounder near memories, stinking farmlands and kicking hooves, side eyed pupils and bleating calls from times long before here and now, and he clawed his way through already chipped bone and cartilage, gobbling down still whole organ meats, filling the emptiness inside himself and quieting all other sentient thought.</p><p>At least, until a rumbled burbled cough and squishy footsteps alerted him to the outside world once again.</p><p>Raising his head from the carcass, near ferally sticking his face whole into the mess, his fins spread and muscles tensed as fishy eyes and jagged crooked teeth gaped back at him.</p><p>They locked in a stiff stare down, him covered in oily fluids and the other hunched, standing in bulky merm blankness, much larger eyes, fins, and mass growing more and more threatening as time passed.</p><p>It did not cross his mind it may be due to him stepping over the boundaries of territory, or the desecration of the dead; instead, all that rose up was the threat of losing his gory meal. Indigestion be damned, it filled him all the same and soothed the aches of eternal cursed living.</p><p>His finned ears fell flat to his head, membranous fins down his spine rising, stiff limbed as he half rose and barred his gory jaws, strips of flesh still clinging to his jagged fangs, and a low warning hiss burbled through him, easing from his gaping maw and whistled from his flaring gills.</p><p>The fish folk before him considered the display as he spread his arms and webbed talons, fins and membranes spread to the highest, to make himself bigger, and his growl was deepened, gurgled.</p><p>
  <i>"Just try it, pal."</i>
</p><p>The thin veiled thought came unbidden, sudden, and its wheedled droll voice echoed in his head, vibrated gibberish in his own throat and out his gills, and that made his ears twitch, distracted for only a moment by the appearance of his once used voice.</p><p>It was enough for the merm to make a decision.</p><p>With a gurgled splat of a roar, it charged, swung its bulky claws, and he hissed and shied away in still display mode, unbalanced by the sudden internal upheaval of inner sentience. </p><p>His defilement of the dead seemed to have voided mercy, however, and a clipping smack had him flung away and rolling in the mud. Withering with sharp screeches, offended and enraged and now nauseous, he scrambled away from the advancing fish folk, mud scraping in his claws and coating his fins and slimy webbing.</p><p>His high pitched, distressed sounds seemed to deter it, made it hesitate as it garbled bubbly sounds, almost words, and it blinked layered eyelids as it watched him wither away on his belly. Finned ears flat, the slide of mud under him easing his escape and harassment, he warbled pitifully as he went, sinking into swamp muck and the oozing waters of a nearby sunken lake.</p><p>When he chanced a glance behind him the merm had wandered off, squishy footsteps as it trudged back to its crooked house, and he glared as he sunk low, only his eyes and tips of his ears, bits of jagged teeth clipping through the murky waters.</p><p>It stopped by the half eaten corpse of its fallen folk, muffing and coughing gurgled noise, and he narrowed his eyes as it sloped mud and sticky grasses on the corpse, dirtying the flesh and coating the remains away from sight. His irritable hisses whistled from his gills, and the mud could do little to ease the bruising ache that had blossomed up from his shoulder and arm, a pain now growing ever stronger as his guts started to cramp up.</p><p>With a last whispered whistle of frustration, eyeing the merm as it almost daintily placed a lone wilted dandelion upon the mud mound of a grave, he finally turned and slithered away, let the drop of mud and stagnant waters carry him through elsewhere.</p><p>He may not recognize it, but the other merm folk were growing tired of his presence.</p><p>***</p><p>
  <i>"Hey, what the hell are you doing out here doing nothing? Didn't I tell you earlier we needed that salt ground up?"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"..."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Don't ignore me, Maxwell, I know you heard me. That dish is done, Wickerbottom wants to salt it just incase, and hopefully that'll get us another favor. As long as we keep on top of things as we have been no one else should turn."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"..."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Maxwell, why are you ignoring me?"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"..."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"This is important you know! You should know better than to just stand around, and ignoring me right now is not in your best interests! What are you-"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"..."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"..."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"..."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"...When did...did that happen?"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"...Th-this morn-ing…"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"...Does it hurt, to talk? Or breathe? I'll go tell Wickerbottom to get some water ready, maybe the moisture will help-"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"I-I'll be fi-ine, p-pal-"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"That doesn't look fine, Maxwell! Gills are aquatic, they don't work well in air, especially dry air, haven't you ever seen a fish out of water before-"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Hig-gsbu-ry-"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"What, Maxwell, what?! What are you even going to say, do you know how hard it is trying to understand you right now? You sound like you're choking for god sakes, you're having difficulty breathing and you have, have fucking gills for the love of god what can you say to me right now that'll actually calm me down because I think I'm starting to panic-"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Sssssst-sssstop-"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"-even, even though we've done everything that horrid worm wants it's still cursing us, it's not even letting up for a second, we've been appeasing it for days now and the, the scales are still going up my arms and my hands ache and, and you have fucking gills-"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Ssssshhhh-ut--"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"-Oh god are you okay? They must be dry, that's why you're, you're coughing, you just need water, right, right? Here, just, let me get you back to camp, Wickerbottom will know what to do, she has to because I sure as hell don't know, I don't know what I'm doing, what are we doing? I don't know, feeding a giant worm, that's it, that's all it is, trying to not turn into, into fish, are you still listening to me-?"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Sssssshhhhhh-"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Stop trying to talk, it's not working! Ha, haha, I think I'm, not handling this well, but don't you dare suffocate or choke or whatever it is that is happening to you, to your, ha, your gills! Damn it you're getting blood on me now, ha! Back to camp, right now, yeah, and, and I'll get the salt later, we still have a few hours, those teeth are only a hint peckish, we have time, right?"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"..."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"...right?"</i>
</p><p>***</p><p>Swamp nights hummed with sound, ambience as the mud bubbled and the creepy crawlies slithered about, looking for their next meals and then digging for even more afterwards.</p><p>The whipping of the tentacles carried over the marshlands, along with gargled shouts and coughs of wet battle cries, the shrill screeches of the spider population as they patrolled, and during it all he slunk lower into the mud, hidden away in the pitch night.</p><p>Some forgotten part of himself, hidden and faint in the back of his subconscious mind as it slowly drained into forgotten memory, it ticked and itched and he hid away from the dark. The unreasonable urge drew the curses ire, the cravings to the surface, and the mud was cold and the algae ridden waters even colder but hide he did, tucked away from prying fishy or spidery eyes. Even the mosquitos buzzed past him, not even acknowledging his presence as he grew cold and drowsy, half sunken into the muds embrace.</p><p>He had cozied up to one of the trees, a great dry dead thing, pale albino with sprawling bone roots that he easily had wiggled against, under, mud and faint puddles of water parting under his webbed claws. Curled up as best as he could, gut twisting and turning and too cold from fall winter and even colder mud, he curled up under the spiky skeleton tree and waited out the night.</p><p>Nearby, there was the low haunting groan of the tentacles, bubbles bursting and flesh rending as merm folk gargled victory cries. They were then interrupted by the calls of the nearby venturing spiders.</p><p>The cracking of chitin and wet cries of pain filled the night, before quieting once more. He couldn't tell who had won, this time, and was much too fatigued to even consider the possibilities.</p><p>His joints had long numbed over in the cold, stiff and wrapped about himself, the mud cushioning and oozing over him in embrace, and very little shone through the night darkness besides the soft glow of his own eyes, the softer whistle of cold air exhaled from his gills.</p><p>The cold subdued him, numbed the curses pains until the 'morrow, and for now he dozed off in a fog.</p><p>Somewhere, deep in the night, a siren sung.</p><p>Subconsciously he idly listened, the far back of his fishy cursed mind rolling a bubble of almost there memory, thought, a past time.</p><p>
  <i>"...She sings so well, even now…"</i>
</p><p>Rising unbidden, a low rumble of almost word mimicry as his gills flared and too abstract tongue twitched, whistling soft sound in his half asleep state. His claws curled in the mud, then drew close to himself, a self hug as his eyes half opened, layered eyelids flicking and half heartedly closing, tired and numb. He wasn't awake, not quite, a half state of near sleep and dozing, and he listened as the night echoed with soft silent song.</p><p>Foggy almost thoughts rose through, billowed a lack of uncertainty and instead a dreamy froth of almost memory, almost remembrance. Vaguely, somehow, he knew this song.</p><p>There were no remembered lyrics, only faint sound; a hummed thing, a soft thing that slowly eased through what was left of his sentient mind, and what could respond was too dull, too numbed down now. But, even as he curled up and drifted in near sleep, what came unbidden was faint dream smoke, flashes of near happenings, past times.</p><p>Warm hands in his own, the sharp click of marble underfoot. The low hum of crowd chatter, laughter, gossip and celebration. Less than half known memories, and he remembered no face but only a smile, a soft, full smile untethered by shadow.</p><p>His gills whistled with his breath, near silent as he half dreamed, claws twitching as faint memory graced him with something he'd not remember when he awoke in the morning. </p><p>Swinging around, low giggled laughter in forgotten conversation and play. In his almost dreams the siren hummed a long forgotten song, and he danced on with the one he no longer remembered.</p><p>When the sun finally rose, he awoke covered in cold mud, aching numb limbs and the gnawing, starving ache of the curses hunger. No memory of times before graced him; feral hunger took root, and it strung through his chest and gut and drove away foggy thoughts of near sentience. </p><p>He was hungry, and that was all he was to be anymore.</p><p>***</p><p>
  <i>"I, I just, it's just-"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Mr. Higgsbury, you have to focus. I...I know it is quite stressful right now, but it is stressful for us all and you cannot up and abandon the work out of the blue. Do you understand?"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"How, how can you be so calm!? We're dropping like flies, no, no, fish out of water, how many of us are left? And what do we all do, cook for that, that <b>thing?</b> It doesn't want what we give it! How can you tell me to focus when-"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Listen! I understand, all of us do, but you cannot just give up hope-"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Why the ever loving hell not, we'll all turn into those, those monsters eventually-"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Lower your voice, Mr. Higgsbury, or the children will hear you-"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Let them, let them hear me, we can't just pretend everything is fine-"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <b>"Hhhhssssssss…."</b>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>"..."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"..."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"...Mr. Higgsbury. This is not the time, nor the place to be acting like this."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"..."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"...Wilson, I cannot make you do anything you do not want to do, but I am asking you for help. As you said, there are not many of us left who are competent enough to cook such meals, and you have a knack at knowing what the Gnaw wants-"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"I, I don't think I…"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"...You should look at me when I speak to you, dear. It will not help you if you keep looking at them."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"...I don't think I can do anything, if he keeps just staring at me."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Then I will ask Wolfgang to chase them off to a more secure area. Perhaps the park will do, and I can negotiate with Pipton to keep an eye on everyone as we work."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"..."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Does that sound like a good idea to you, Mr. Higgsbury?"</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"...I...yeah, yes, that should. That should work fine."</i>
</p><p>
  <i>"Good. We cannot waste anymore time, and if having them away from camp will help focus you, then all the better."</i>
</p><p>***</p><p>Full moon made the swamp waters glow, algae clustered and thriving as he parted through the muck and pressed finned, scaled palms to sink into the cold mud. The very air was alive with the humming of mosquitoes, some fat insects buzzing about him a moment as he rose from the sunken mire, shook off globs of mud and stretched his fins, cold foggy air exhaled from overpacked toothy jaws. </p><p>The blood suckers found his cold, sluggish blood unappetizing. He's observed the other merms get harassed by the same insects that passed him by, but their blood was a watery red, not the dark crimson near black he'd ooze when the spiky bushes scratched him up far too deep. A blessing he hardly acknowledged, yet one he took distinct advantage in at times; hiding, or even escaping into ponds thronged by swarms of mosquitoes has saved his scaly hide more than once. </p><p>Their fat little larva, wiggling nymphs and cocoons hidden under the stagnant watery surface, were bonus little treats to snack on if he was peckish. Which he usually was, near all the time.</p><p>Even now hunger gnawed in his belly, nipped up his spine and bled through the hollows of his cold body, and he wouldn't turn down a few mosquito treats if he ended up finding them right about now.</p><p>The moonlight glinted off their red sacks as they buzzed onwards, out to find more prey, and he swiped inner eyelids across bulging white eyes, soft mud sliding down the corners of his eyes and to ooze down his scales as his blurry vision cleared just the slightest bit. Scavenging for food was made all the harder by his weak eyesight, which made daylight his hunting hours and night his resting period, a total opposite to the other hulking merms of this place. </p><p>Full moon, however, gave him enough light to feed the aches and pains sprouting in his gut. No reason to sleep it off when he could see what would fill out the agony.</p><p>The chill in the air had sunken throughout the whole swamp, the mirk lakes dropping into temperatures even he couldn't shoulder as the days kept crawling by, and as he passed by thick entangles of reeds and the sprawled skeletons of thorny braken it was becoming evident that his foggy breath was a forewarning. Sentient understanding stopped there, however, and as he raised himself a moment and blinked out to the watery blue tinted swamp, sweeping his gaze all about and ever watchful, alert, the cold iced through his gills and settled deep to his bones and yet the recognition of it was lacking.</p><p>He understood the cold, the trembling that graced his body now in the deeps of pitch black night, but what he didn't understand were the light sheets of frozen muck water that appeared in the morning, the icy dangerous currents that sucked ever downwards to the underground caves from once safe lakes, the sudden lessening appearance of every native inhabitant in the biome. Only the bugs were a constant, were nearly overcrowding now actually, as if fevered by the deepening of temperature and hastening to fatten themselves as quickly as possible.</p><p>But, this mystery did not hold up for long under the curses pressure. His belly nipped and gnawed in on itself whether he was cold or not, freezing and going numb in the claws and toes, and all his focus pinpointed onto feeding the gaping emptiness that infected through him.</p><p>The reeds were brittle as he passed by them, through great layering bushels of them, flecks breaking off and catching against his mud slicked scales, seeds and fuzz that had him shaking his head to try and dislodge as he prowled about. The looming hollow shadows from the outskirts were high, the scent of pines and cold growth passing through his gills as he skirted about the line between swamp and forest, and avoiding that inner darkness was near instinctual.</p><p>There was no mud to hide in there, no lakes or stagnant water pools, no dead spiking trees or thorny bushes or wavering reeds and the soft whistle breath that the wind made through them, and he avoided whatever could be lurking in there. Every once in awhile one of the fish folk would wander outwards, brief huffing gargles and bubbles to the nearby others, and it was only very rarely they ever came tromping back.</p><p>Of those times, dug deep in mud reservoirs and not noticing the odd sweeping glances from the nearby merms, only blinking bulging eyes at the newness of the scene, the venturing fish near always came back dragging behind them that thick violent smell, of red blood and red meat and limping, oozing victory pains. The carcasses were never complete, were decapitations as the merms gargled and cried out in celebration, the return of their kin and the victory of a won squabble, and he'd watch in the backdrop of mud and reeds and watery murk, watch as they shoddily sharpened sticks and then pinned the head lopsided in warning, offering, trophy.</p><p>He'd always wait until the rest of them wandered out of sight, left their artwork in peace, and then off he'd scramble, hissing low and eager before tearing the red meat off its spear hook and digging his claws, jagged teeth into the foul thing. </p><p>Meat and bone and heavy organ grey matter, enamel tusks and crooked teeth torn out and tossed as he'd attempt to scrape the thing clean, line the empty curl of his belly with soft pink pig flesh, chewing gristle floppy ears and licking off the bristles and gnawing against the bone, eating through the soggy fat of its snout, and it wasn't nearly enough but it was free and easy pickings, gobbling down the petty trophy kills from the other merms.</p><p>Last few times, however, he found himself confronted and chased off, losing the red meat and burning the little energy he had in the process. The fish folk were quite territorial about their trophies, though that acknowledgement didn't quite fit into his head and the thoughts were dizzily bitter, angry at the waste and angry at not having the chance to feed.</p><p>In the end, it did not matter; the red fat of pig heads were near nothing to his ravenous belly, and he could scavenge for something far more titillating.</p><p>The swampy mud sloshed as he trawled through it, claws dipping low through the foul waters, and even with blue light from the moon his weak vision could not sparse through much of the shadows that deepened over the swamp. Deep lakes he avoided, unable to catch sight of passing fish or eels, the ice cold water biting through his scales as he'd dip his head under the surface, attempt to catch sight of a possible next meal. Thick tangles of reeds had the telltale sign of movement just under the soft mud, vibration that his spread palms would pick up whenever he hunkered down to check, and the cold air huffed and puffed slow fog from his jaws, iced through his gills the longer he was out and about.</p><p>There wasn't much he could retreat to, out here; the skeletal trees and their caging muddy roots were just as cold as any shallow pond, and his only escape from the ever present hunger, his dream laced sleep that was becoming more and more feverish as his memory faded, was growing harder and harder to achieve. He found that resting tempted the cold in, tempted the exhaustion, and some mornings it was growing ever harder to haul himself from the blanketed frozen mud to feed himself, to scavenge for food that curdled his gut and oftentimes rose nausea to mix with the curses ire.</p><p>No matter what he fed upon, the cold was starting to make it just come back up. Heat and warmth attracted his attention, but hiding amongst still hot corpses allowed for other hunters to get far too close, bite and gnaw and try to feast upon him in turn, and now his system, so twisted by the curse and its impossible desires, heaved up half digested meals that he did not have the energy to finish off anymore.</p><p>It did not stop him from gulping it back down, gnawing hungers ravaging what little was left of his mind, but he had little option left. The air was growing colder and colder, and he did not have enough left in him to understand.</p><p>Some of the merms nearby, during his bouts of sickness, would watch with bulging blank eyes, unmoving, silent besides their low burbles. They moved together in pairs, packs more often, less solitary guards, leaning into each other or sitting in piles, sharing warmth that had him skulking at the edges and glaring from cold pools of mud, not recognizing the jealousy of shared contact as anything but a foul, bitter hungry mood.</p><p>Smaller meals, the mosquitos and their wiggling larvae, did not rise up in sickness later, but they did not soothe the curse either; swallowing feasts of flesh down only to chuck it back up again hours later was becoming a new norm he did not understand nor know how to handle.</p><p>The cold made him confused, the curse more so, and now he wandered under full moon, hunting for the littlest hint of something that might fill the voracious emptiness inside himself that was just digging deeper and deeper and ever deeper.</p><p>He did not know it, but he was losing more and more of who he had been as the curse won more battles. Like many of the merms out in the swamps, he was losing his war.</p><p>Sound broke him away from trawling claws into a soft shallow mud pit, webbing scooping out handfuls as he searched through touch for traces of mud living critters, slimy worms or frog eggs or perhaps a snake or two. He raised his head, fins flaring wide as he tilted, listened, bulging fish eyes unblinking and unseeing in the minor alert focus, and after a moment he silently pulled himself out from the thick soft mud, slowly trying to swallow him down along with whatever it had caught ages ago, its crawling creepy crawlies, and slithered his way to a patch of reeds, sunken down and hidden amongst their brittle thin outreaches.</p><p>Not too far from him, awash in blue dark shadows, he could see the slimy swinging gaits of tentacles enraged.</p><p>They whipped through the air, slashed and swung and slapped into each other, spewing bloody ichor in their mindless attacks against their fellow tendrils, and the sheer violent sound rung red flags in the empty faded fog that still contained his lost memory.</p><p>It made him sink lower, mud oozing into the concave of his ever open jaw, pool between his jagged teeth, and his gills flared in pulses as he watched the creatures tear each other apart, glowing faint eyes wide and sliding a slow, moist blink from inner eyelids. Cold air clouded from his gilled breath, mud blanketing his claws and webbing, soaking up against his belly as he lay there amongst the reeds and watched, and the wafting scent of violence and alien blood encouraged a sudden slush of drool to pool in his mouth, mix with the mud and foul muck.</p><p>Hunger lapped at the forefront of his conscious mind, and he wiggled forward ever so slightly, watching as the spike tipped tentacles proceeded to beat each other to death.</p><p>It was an unusual process, one he has not seen before, and yet the opportunity for a meal would not be wasted. Deep under the thin oily smell of tendril ichor, there was a thicker, meatier smell.</p><p>Not quite fishy, and not quite red meat, but it was flesh, open wound, and he slithered forward a bit more in mounting excitement, trepidation making his fins flare and limbs shiver, gills pulsing with cold foggy breath as every second dragged by.</p><p>He was just so, so very hungry. The curse wailed to be fed.</p><p>And then something moved, shifted amongst the sea of withering, bleeding tentacles, and his bulging eyes blinked over, slushing mud and reed flecks from his vision as he raised his head, globs of drool and mud slopping from his open jaws.</p><p>There was a tiny little merm, amongst the chaos of purple violent monsters, and it was darting, jumping, leaping about in the mess. Scent gave away that it was wounded, injured, and yet it still ran about, deftly sprinting out of each tentacles way, clawing its own attacks into the bases of each tendril and sending them into fits of swiping madness. </p><p>It seemed as if to be heading somewhere in the crowded nest, and he watched, stupified, as it finally slowed down in a skid, little claws and fins and flippers flaring up as it scooped up something from the mud.</p><p>And right then one of the larger tentacles coiled up, overlarge spines flashing in the full moons light, and it lashed out in retaliation.</p><p>The little merm squeaked, a sharp, high pitched sound as it was flung away, back into the thickest part of the tentacles nest, and the noise was sudden and sharp and broke him straight out of his trance, shaking his head and webbed ears fitfully, flinging the last traces of pooled mud from his jaws.</p><p>His claws had already scrambled himself up into a half stand, leaning heavily as he stared, blurry sight darting about for that briefest flash of color other than dark hued purple, and when he caught it, something sentient, conscious and faintly remembered, rose up too fast for either regressed monster instinct or tempting curse to engulf and drown. </p><p>It had him up and flinging into the tentacles invaded nest without a single planned thought; his foggy mind couldn't think that far ahead, and nothing but the hissy sound of his own gargled, unused voice rung in his ears as the tendrils renewed their assaults against each other with a new vigor.</p><p>
  <i>"Hold on, kid!"</i>
</p><p>The sound would have confused him, dizzied him from lack of energy and thought process so pressured and buried down by the curses ways, but then he was flinging himself under a tentacles swinging bat of a self, its spine slodging into the base of another of its kind and sending both into hysterical knotted fits, but the ensuing chaotic confusion gave him time to scramble in the churned mud and follow the scent of pouring thick blood, slithering as low and as flat as he could amongst the tendrils bruised bases. They slashed against each other up top, mindless and reacting in violence to each slashing wound enacted upon them from another, and for a few moments he was safe.</p><p>It was enough time to find the curled up bundled fishy, small and alien and fragile as he ghosted his claws over it, and it had its eyes tightly shut but at his low, dizzy and confused hiss at its presence, now unsteady by his own choices made right before now, the threat of danger and death rising far in his throat and flaring his gills in breaths that were emulating hyperventilating, the small merm opened up its eyes.</p><p>Large orbs, pale and bleached white, but its face twisted, fins flared up and down at its panicked breath, claws holding the thing it had retrieved to its chest and its own blood pouring out into the mud all about it, and all it did was stare at him for a moment.</p><p>And then it bubbled, a low gurgly sound and froth from its jaws, only a few jagged teeth amongst thick blocky ones, interspaced and crooked and so very small compared to his terror mass of fangy jaws, and it blinked up at him as the tentacles all around swung and whipped through the air in a frenzy.</p><p>For a split second, a frozen moment in time as cold mud soaked into his scales and splashed tentacle blood splattered all about in the chaos, something besides the every encompassing <i>hunger</i> rose up and settled itself into the deep of his being, right there amongst the leftover faint memories he had left that his animal mind could no longer reach.</p><p>For a moment, he forgot about the curse altogether.</p><p>The whipping of the tentacles rushed right back in as he made his dizzy, confused decision, fins flaring and then laying as close to his body as they could as he scooped up the little merm, held it close and protected before scrambling for a way out between the tentacles.</p><p>He could not longer slither his way out unnoticed, not with weight in his arms and blood pouring in a trail behind him, but new, unknown strength had him in its grasp and the tendrils swung all about, slammed and dragged scrawling wounds into each other in an effort to reach him as he dodged and leapt out of their radius. The nest was going into a frenzy, mud bubbling up in the madness as more and more cut each other down, curling and withering remains still trying to fight even as they died in the boiling mud, and his balance, shot as it always has been, made him tumble and trip through the twisting rings and curves on his way out.</p><p>Pain did not blossom, nor scrape his notice as he rushed and skidded out from the mayhem; the merm in his arms stared at him with big wide eyes, stirring something that his old memory almost remembered, nearly forgot, and when he finally collapsed down with shaking, weakened legs into the cold, thicker mud outside the ring of the tentacles territory his scaly throat convulsed, gills flaring and mind going light from the excitement, fins trembling something awful, and he slowly, carefully let the little merm slide from his arms into sitting upright in the mud.</p><p>
  <i>"You'll be okay now, pal."</i>
</p><p>It blinked at him again, still clutching the dark rectangle thing in its claws to its chest, still bleeding but now, without the over cast of tentacles all about it didn't nearly look so bad, and it tilted its head, bubbling in what felt as if to be confusion.</p><p>His fins trembled, as everything came slowly washing back, the curse <i>shrieking</i> in a hunger tearing wail that him curl backwards in a fitful sickening gasp, but then all he could do for a moment was sit there, kneeled in the mud and webbed claws curled into the chilly ooze, little merm watching him, as the pain suddenly rushed its way to awareness.</p><p>The mud all about him, he realized, was more blood than muk.</p><p>And it wasn't coming from the little one before him.</p><p>Sentient thought drowned in the needle shock of agony, frozen and gaping, gills flared and webbing spread as he trembled and shook, stock still as his starving body became aware of new pains, new, more physically inclined ills, and it all worked in tandem with the <i>curse</i> as it ate its way through him and shred what little mind he had left in its violent anger and engulfing pains.</p><p> </p><p>It was when the little merm moved, a soft, slow sound, perhaps words from its toothy jaws, the even softer feeling of small claws reaching out to touch his shoulder, a question gracing the air, that the <i>curse</i> snapped back.</p><p>He jerked back, agonies and pain and the feeling of opening, stretching wounds, ripped webbing and clipped scaly flesh that now roared in a deep vibrating sense of self that drowned any leftover sentient thought, and his snapping hiss, gush of blood from his jaws and leaking from his gills as he scrambled back from the creature before him seemed to distress it.</p><p>His vision went spotty, gone and back again as he wobbled in unsteady dying balance, and yet his eyes didn't leave the thing, the, the <i>threat, threat</i> the curse screamed, everything screamed and hurt and pain lashed through him tied tight in a bundle with the eating hunger that was snapping the rest of him before gobbling down in a miasma of pained flesh and oozing agonies and he-</p><p>He hissed again, flared his torn webbing and fins and opened his jaws, leaking blood as his sight swirled in a mist of disgusting color and the ringing slashes and slaps of the tentacles behind him, still engaged in senseless violence, and for a fraction of a moment-</p><p>His hunger had him and he wanted to <i>eat the small thing before him.</i></p><p>And then something curdled inside him, his leg shuddered in sparking sharp pain, and the voraciousness fled in a mindless recognition of <i>pain.</i></p><p>And he scrambled, stumbled and then tumbled in a frantic slither, avoiding the nest of tentacles, avoiding the confused wobbly standing tiny merm and its caught tight book, and he fled.</p>
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